It's Lonely Inside My Head
by CanidSerpent
Summary: It is said that the loneliest souls are drawn to one another through their shared isolation from humanity. This case was no exception. (Dr. Frederick Chilton x Reader) {3rd-Person Reader-Insert}
1. Chapter 1

_Who knows what true loneliness is - not the conventional word but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion. ~ Joseph Conrad  
_

* * *

To this day she still wasn't quite sure of what had drawn her to him in the first place.

And there was a forlorn part of her soul that still refused to accept it. The part of her that had grown so accustomed to the loneliness she had seemed to be cursed with in her youth. It hadn't been her fault, she just didn't know how to talk to people. They were confusing creatures to her; perplexed by the simplest of concepts and always concerned with things that were undeniably petty. The fact that her voice had a tendency to crack when confronted by others did not much help her case either.

As a result, her schooling years had been rough at best. And it was then during her adolescence that she developed her dependency on gestures, motions, and written notes to convey herself to others. People couldn't make fun of her if she never opened her mouth.

Eventually she found herself a job as a pen-pusher for a local business firm. It wasn't particularly glamorous, but it had enabled her to support herself without being forced to talk to people.

During her lunch hours she liked to frequent a café only a few miles away from her work. It was homely at best, neither glamorous nor rundown to the point where its foundations had begun to break apart. It was a family owned business, run by a woman and her grandmother for about twenty years before she became a regular customer of theirs. She had a table by the window that she would always sit at, where she would contentedly indulge herself in one of the various sweets the small establishment offered with a side order of coffee, black as she liked it. Sometimes she would linger a bit longer than she should have, so she could watch the other customers; watch how they socialized with one another. She watched college frat boys mumble about their upcoming midterms that none of them had spent time preparing for, she watched the young, high school girls giggle and swoon over the older boys in their grade, and she watched burgeoning couples hold each other's hand as they shared one of the cafe's delightful tortes.

She left only when the sights became too much for her, when her heart became filled with such a sense of loneliness that not even she could handle. Only then would she drive back towards the monotony of her job, where the pain of her lifelong predicament was no longer quite as obvious as it had been an hour ago.

This routine of hers lasted until one December afternoon, when she arrived to find a man seated at her usual spot beside the window. He did not turn to look at her, his attention divided between his observation of the passerby that strolled past the window and the ministrations he made with the hand that had settled itself on the head of the cane that was tightly held to his side. A waitress turned to look at her for a moment after she had set down his order of coffee, taking in the visible signs of discomfort that had begun to etch their way across every inch of her face. She offered her a small smile, but left her all the same.

People always left her.

Swallowing the bundle of nerves that had begun to writhe in her throat, she looked towards the other tables. They were full, filled with masses of people laughing and chatting as if it were 1999 again.

_"Would you mind if I sat here?"_ she decided she would use her voice this time. And how she wished she hadn't as the words lifted themselves from her tongue one-by-one, inch-by-inch. They were filled with cracks. And she could only bite her tongue in order to avoid further embarrassment.

Although he didn't seem to take notice of her voice. He glanced towards her out of the corner of his eye, barely straining his gaze from the window to acknowledge her presence before nodding his head ever so slightly to tell her it made no difference to him.

Gently, she eased herself into the seat opposite of him, pulling out a book that she had brought with her as she waited for the waitress to bring her her usual order of coffee. Hidden behind the pages her took the time to observe him. He looked out-of-place at the homely establishment, the sizable price tag that her knew must have been attached to the suit and tie he wore seemed to suggest a penchant for something a bit more grandiose. But more than anything her eyes lingered on that rather ostentatious cane that he kept by his side. He did not appear as if he were particularly aged; hard lines had not become impressed into his skin, nor did he have that same labored breathing that some of her older co-workers did.

_Then, why does he need a cane?_

The curiosity ate away at her as she sat there, but she never said anything. She was doubtful he would appreciate her prying into his personal affairs, and she had already embarrassed herself enough with her voice for one day.

She did not have to stew with her incessant curiosity for long, as he eased himself out from his seat not more than ten minutes after she had arrived. She glanced at him furtively from between the pages of the book she had been pretending to have been engrossed in for the last ten minutes, taking note of the slight stagger in his step as he ambled his way out of the tiny cafe. Some of the other patrons' faces construed into expressions of pity, while others simply remained apathetic to the matter.

Hers took on one of uncertainty.

Her eyes lingered on his exiting form, and took notice of him once more as his path took him by the window she sat beside. Her curiosity of him and his predicament had burrowed itself deep into her heart, stirring the eggs of butterflies she had forgotten had nestled themselves inside the very arteries of her heart.

After silently thanking the waitress for her coffee in her usual manner, she found herself filled with a sense of longing.

She hoped that fate would allow her to see him again.

* * *

It appeared that he had a preference for Tuesdays. Those were the days she always saw him.

Despite the fact that there was no interaction between the two of them, a part of her began to look forward to the days she saw him. Her Tuesdays became just a little bit brighter after seeing him. Although she could never quite pinpoint why being in his presence lifted her mood as it did.

Gradually, she found herself sneaking glances toward him from the rim of her coffee mug, or from the pages of whatever book she had been assigned to read for her therapy. Her curiosity had not dwindled since the day she had first laid her eyes on him, but she was unwilling to let him hear those God-awful cracks in her voice ever again.

So she satisfied herself with the occasional scrutinizing glance, during which she tried to deduce all she could of the man from his outward appearance.

She noticed he was always turned to the side, away from her, his eyes towards the window that neighbored the two of them, the other patrons of the establishment, or perhaps even lost in his own thoughts. One of his hands always rested on the glittering head of the cane he kept tethered to his side. She noticed sometimes he would grip it a bit tighter than normal. A subtle observation at best, one she noticed only from the tiny twitch of muscles embedded in his hand. But she knew it was a nervous habit. She had traded her voice for a keen eye when she was a child, and by then she had had several years to perfect her skill.

Of course she could never see any farther than that, he was too good to allow her to peek beneath his skin so easily. Those moments of nervousness, from where they originated she still had no idea, lasted for brief seconds. By then he had regained whatever composure he had lost, his posture relaxed and oozing of a man who knew he held a position of power in the world.

* * *

Sometimes, when her nose was pressed deep into one of the many books she seemed to constantly lug around with her all the time, he would spare her a glance. He would do so discreetly, just as she did with him, although she was a bit easier to read than he was.

There was an overwhelming wave of shyness that seemed to pervade her very being, as if she would much rather hide in a dark corner than be in the homely little café where people laughed and chatted as if there were nothing better to do. He could tell from the way she leafed through the pages of her books, as she often did it frenetically, peering up from the pages only to bury herself back within them in a matter of seconds.

He'd have forgotten her by now if it weren't for the fact she decided it was her job to sit opposite of him every week. In fact, her silence made it incredibly easy to forget she was even there; he only took notice of her again whenever the waitress stopped by to hand her her order as she shuffled around in her bag for the notepad she always wrote and tore a page from to hand to the woman.

He had heard her voice only once since he'd started frequenting the café as a means to escape the hectic business of the asylum. By now it was a faint memory. He could only remember how her face had twisted into such an expression of pure agony once she allowed the words to slip out from her throat.

He had thought little of it until now, now that he had become curious of her. Curious of the creature that had made it her habit to accompany him during his weekly visits to the establishment.

He isn't a man that's used to the company of others, at least not for reasons other than business. The nurses and orderlies of his asylum whisper about him when they think he can't hear them, speaking of him as they would a snake that had wormed itself into the heartland. And while he's become prone to eating dinner with Hannibal Lecter since his evisceration, it's not on a friendly basis. It only exists because of their shared background in psychiatry, and of course, the matter of Will Graham.

If he's going to be completely honest with himself, he's almost forgotten what the term means entirely. Friendship was not something he'd been graced with, not even in his herth. But he's had time, years, to grow accustomed to the fact. It's gotten to the point where it scarcely affects him anymore. Perhaps there's a pang when he notices others his age in such a state of bliss at the joy their companions, but that's more of envy than anything else (something he's begun to experience more and more since his experience with Gideon in the observatory, although he'd never admit he's allowed himself to become indulgent in such petty thoughts.)

He's come to think of her as a constant in his life. One that he welcomes over his inmates' newfound pastime of making passing comments about the sudden limp in his leg since the incident.

Not to say she wasn't still infinitely perplexing to him, but he takes what solace he can derive from her company. No matter how brief and seemingly unsatisfying it must have seemed to others.


	2. Chapter 2

It was late April when he decided he would finally speak to her.

He turned to face her, and after taking a heavy mouthful of coffee, he pursed his lips for a moment and asked her what her name was.

It was a simple question, one that she were tempted to answer with her tongue. But she faltered, thinking that he surely must have remembered the varying inflections of her voice from that December afternoon, and how he must have silently laughed at her for it. Ducking her gaze from his, she slipped her hand into the bag she always brought with her, digging for the notepad her social interactions were dependent on.

Tearing a page out, she quickly scribbled her name with the ball-point pen she safely kept tucked away in her pocket. Quietly, she slid the torn page across the table, choosing to direct her gaze towards her fidgeting hands as she waited for his response.

Most looked at her a bit strangely whenever she handed them notes rather than speaking. And she could often feel her larynx constrict whenever she heard the voices of others. Those melodious voices that were unobstructed by the ever-shifting tones hers seemed to be riddled with.

It ignited a small fire within her breast, but of course, she could never speak of it. She could not hiss and spit at the people who liked to taunt her with their own unhampered tongues, she could only sit and seethe in anger. Perhaps she could muster a fiery glare in their direction, but she found most would pretend not to notice.

And why should they? What worth was she if she refused to speak as everybody else did?

Lost in the flurry of thoughts that tended to swirl about in her head whenever she thought about the problem of her voice, she failed to notice him bring out his own pen and sign his name below hers.

She looked up from her hands only when she heard the familiar crinkle the paper made as he slid it back to her just as she had to him. She searched his face as she took the note with a free hand, trying to find some misguided intention or other. But as always with anytime she tried to peek beneath the surface, he would shut her out.

It was not something she was used to, and she could not even begin to express how much the fact frustrated her.

Nonetheless, she felt the corners of her mouth twitch into a genuine smile. He did not return the expression, but she swore the color in his eyes became just a little bit lighter when he glanced towards her again.

* * *

She learned his name was Frederick Chilton and that he was the chief of staff of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

She felt as if she had heard the name somewhere before, but she could not for the life of her remember where or when, or if she ever had at all.

It would not be the first time she seemed to have a recollection of things that had never happened, nor would it be the last.

And as she held the yellow slip of paper between a thumb and a finger, having read the text inscribed on it just short of one hundred times since that April afternoon, she wondered if perhaps her subconscious had dreamed up the whole thing just to appease her ever-growing sense of loneliness.

Her choice to become a selective mute had not come without a heavy price. Humans were a hopelessly socially-dependent species, and if you chose to betray that social nature, well, then you may as well have never existed in the first place.

She was like a ghost in that way, she supposed. Doomed to wander forever while she was incapable of attaching herself to anyone or anything.

She had told herself long ago that she lived the way she did because God had always intended for her to live this way when He twisted the fibers of her larynx into a tight knot. Although that became a lie that had become increasingly harder and harder to believe as time wore on.

She could train her mind to accept her socially unorthodox lifestyle, but her heart would refute it every step of the way.

Once, she had thought the feeling would pass, that she would adapt to her existence. But she had found out early on in her adult life that it would not be so easy. Quite poignantly, the universe told her that such a feeling of contentedness in her life would demand far more effort on her part than she had initially imagined. Effort that she wasn't ready to exert at the time, just as she wasn't now, even as she sat by herself in the large estate her parents left her, with only the sounds of the house to remind her that there was indeed a world outside of herself.

A world she had once been more than content to observe at one time. But now she wanted to touch it, to mold it like so many of her peers in her university days had dreamed of doing. She wanted to unwind the iron chain she had wrapped around her throat and let her voice, and all of its varying tones, be known to the heavens. But then she would remember how the world would frown at such a display, how it would chide and slap the hands of the beasts they had worked so hard to ensure would never rise up to lay their grubby hands on the world. Taint it with their miserable and misshapen fingers, their eyes that always insisted in looking in two directions at once, or their vile tongues that could not tell an 'a' from an 'e'. It is then that she began to recede again, within the shell of her loneliness, so the world does not brand her with the disapproving gaze she knows it will turn to her the very moment she allows even the smallest and most insignificant of words to slip up from her throat.

She was not born to sing as others were. She was born in an empty silence that would come to define her. She looked listlessly towards the finer examples of humanity, and then the less than exemplary bits too. Reaching, coveting, something that would fill the emptiness inside her.

But silence was silence, and no matter how many people she could find to blame for her predicament that familiar sense of hollowness would always be there.


	3. Chapter 3

He can count on his fingers the amount of times she has willingly chosen to speak since their initial meeting.

There is, of course, the time she asked to sit opposite of him back in December. And there was another occurrence not too long ago when the usual waitress was out sick and had to have her position filled by another waiter for a day. This waiter was not used to her unique method of ordering, and after glancing at the puzzlement in his eyes at her refusal to communicate her order to him verbally, she had quickly chirped her order to the man, not wanting her voice to linger any longer than it was necessary. She has also made casual, speedy replies when some of the café's other customers speak to her in greeting or polite inquiry. And he's noticed the physical discomfort that settled across every inch of her features whenever she allowed words to pass from her mouth rather than from the ink of her pen. her very frame tensed, her eyes averted away from whomever you had chosen to speak to, and her teeth settled over her bottom lip nervously whilst she entangled her fingers with one another, distracting herself in a vain attempt to pretend nothing was happening.

It was part of the reason he chose to humor her in her unorthodox method of socializing. It allowed him to communicate with her on a level she was comfortable with, one that freed her of sweaty palms and evasive glances.

She's still been tight-lipped as to what she's chosen to divulge through her notes, but the tenseness that had seemed to previously overtake the entirety of her being had dissipated, when she was in his company, at least. He's learned as to why she resigned herself to silence. She's written her reasons to him in bits and pieces, telling him that her voice is ever-partial to cracking, despite her speech therapist's best efforts to aid her in training it not to.

He's noticed her varying inflections in those few times she's allowed her strangled cords to throb against one another, though he has never said anything about it. There wasn't a reason to; it was painfully obvious she was aware of her own circumstances, and he saw no reason to further her awareness of her own conditions.

He's told her things too, mostly about his work; about the patients he works with on a daily basis, or the state of the asylum itself. And she'll smile as he does so, even if she doesn't always quite understand what he's going on about. But sometimes he'll tell her about himself. It was never much, sometimes it was even less than what she was willing to tell him about herself, but it was something nonetheless. He wasn't normally so forthcoming, but the genuine interest that sparked in her eyes whenever he had something to say encouraged him to interact with her. He appreciated her acknowledgement of him, if only because she's been the first to give him the recognition he deserved (even if it might not have been in the way he'd always imagined).

However, today she wasn't there.

It was the first time since they had met one another on that cold, winter afternoon that one of them had been absent. And as much as he tried to tell himself that it didn't bother him, it did. He'd grown used to her company, fond of it even, and he couldn't help but think that she must have been avoiding him somehow.

He found himself looking towards the window from the corner of his eye as his free hand drummed noiselessly upon the table, as if expecting her to suddenly come stumbling by. A lingering hope that became harder and harder to hold onto as he realized he'd already been sitting in the café for an hour.

Alone. As he had been before she'd wandered into his life.

With a heavy sigh, he rose from his seat. A frown curved across his lips as he again found himself scanning for her form beyond the window, or buried somewhere amongst all the other bodies within the establishment. He didn't see her, and finding no further reason for him to remain, he ambled his way out, gripping the head of his cane a bit tighter than he normally would as he did so.

He tried not to think of her as he made his way back to the asylum, because he wasn't entirely certain if he was ever going to see her again, and that thought alone produced a pain in his heart he hadn't felt for years.


	4. Chapter 4

He didn't see her again until two weeks after the first incident.

And by then he had become leery, unsure if whether the interest she had expressed towards him over the number of months he'd come to know her was genuine, or if it had been a fraudulent scheme she had conceived simply so he would leave her alone as he had before. He was unused to the attention she so readily gave him, unused to those feelings of being wanted or loved in some shape or form by another human being. She was the first person to give him those feelings besides his mother (although he suspects she only ever did it out of pity. Pity for the poor, friendless boy who entered med school fully aware that his palms began to sweat at the faintest smell of blood) and he found himself clinging to the idea of her as a friend, (perhaps as something more if he was lucky) when the darkness came to overtake him. It was also in those moments that he remembered his usual fortunes with relationships of any sort, (or his lack thereof) and a part of him he's tried to bury in the deepest recesses of his mind reminded him that it wasn't likely to come of anything, that she was going to leave him just as everybody else has at some point in his life, leaving him to stew in his own loneliness for however long it took to rid himself of the feeling.

The thought made it easier for him to forget about her during her unannounced and unexpected absences, and he wasn't quite prepared to confront her about the matter now that she had shown up again. So, he directed his attention elsewhere; towards the window beside the two of her, the mug of coffee he kept a tight hand around, or even the familiar waitress who sauntered around the place.

She continued to behave as she normally did during their meetings, although he noticed she could not help the lingering sense of worry from filling in her eyes as she made her characteristic fleeting glances to and from him. There was a certain heaviness in her eyes that he could not remember seeing before in all the weeks he'd spent with her at this very table. She clasped shaky hands around her coffee cup after the waitress set it before her, letting the liquid slide gingerly into her throat as if she was afraid of overdosing on it if she drank too much all at once. She had always been vulnerable, despite his attempts to lessen her anxiety so that he could get to know her better, but this time it was a bit much, even for her.

Silently, he watched as her tore out another page from her notebook, quickly scribbling something on it before sliding it across the table in her usual fashion. He took it with his free hand, still glancing towards her out of the corner of his eye, as he quietly read what she had written. She had told him that her boss had started cutting out some of his employee's lunch hours, and that one of her female coworkers (who she altogether really couldn't stand, but dealt with nonetheless) had asked her to take over her shift so she could leave early to spend some extra time with her boyfriend.

He ran her words through his head, trying to find some fault within them as she looked towards him expectantly. There was a coldness in his eyes as he returned her glances, brought out by his rising distrust of her since her abrupt disappearance. And it wasn't a feeling that healed itself easily. Rather, it had burrowed itself deep into the crevices of his heart, infusing itself with the loneliness to become something much worse, something degrading.

her would not have been the first to provide him with the illusion of a genuine sense of companionship only to yank it away as he grew used to the feelings it brought out in him. And despite what he knew of her, he could not shake away the thought.

But he would not allow her to steal a glimpse of his damaged pride. He accepted her apology silently, sliding the slip of paper back to her with no further questions. Though he averted his eyes from hers in the manner he had before he'd come to accept her as a factor in his life.

He could tell that she noticed the change. Her movements become stiffer than they had been, as if the tenseness of the atmosphere had wormed its way into her bloodstream and begun to corrode the muscle within. And it wasn't long before she felt forced to look anywhere but him as well.

He could tell it was a struggle for her, what with the way she turned her neck in a vain attempt to direct her attention away from him, trying to hide her eyes which desired nothing more than for their gaze to fall on him once more. And a part of him wanted them to, that crude, emotional part of him that clung and reached for her when he was immersed in his deepest and darkest nightmares.

He remembered the gruesome details of his evisceration all too well. When his thoughts wavered he could remember vividly the image of his own unsightly organs as Abel Gideon had ripped them out from his abdomen. But at night, he experienced the event all over again in perfect clarity. The scar on his stomach leftover from Gideon's handiwork and the doctors' attempts to stitch him up did nothing to help him forget either.

He's been too lonely and too friendless for too long to stand the idea of losing her, whether it be due to the icy and apathetic grip of death or through his own doing. And she's shown him her own loneliness. She told him how it created a void within her, and the only reason she started to frequent the homely café was to fill it with the thoughts and feelings of a thousand other voices. But she hadn't realized how those voices would affect her, how they would be a cruel reminder of her own disability, and how they would only make that void she was so desperate to fill even bigger than before.

She told him that the gaping hole within her soul had started to shrink since she began spending her lunches with him.

They were alike in that way. And perhaps that's why he's come to look forward to her company; there was an understanding between the two of them. An understanding of what it really meant to be alone, not just the isolation or the wistful glances one would exchange with the people who surrounded themselves with companions, but the utter depravity of the feeling. That feeling of being encased in ice, awake, but not truly alive, not in the true sense of the word. But still being able to feel and witness everything that went on around you, and being powerless to affect it.

But she had shaken his faith in her, and he wasn't sure whether he wanted to risk becoming involved with her when the lingering voice in the corner of his mind constantly reminded him that she could leave at any moment. And that her leaving was, unfortunately, the most likely outcome of any relationship he chose to pursue with her.

* * *

She wasn't sure why she told him that she had gotten held up at work for the past two weeks. But she had, and now he wouldn't so much as look at her.

She cursed herself inwardly. Was her lie so feeble as to not even be capable of fooling those it was meant to hide the truth from?

The truth of the matter was that she had been visiting her mother up in Chesapeake over the course of the past two weeks. A social worker had contacted her a number of months ago, informing her that her mother had contracted a form of breast cancer. And being the good child she was, it was her duty to support her through her suffering, financially or otherwise.

The only trouble was that her mother had not always been the most accepting of people, and she could never quite comprehend why the use of her voice was such a source of anxiety for her. The social worker she'd come to work closely with on the subject of her mother encouraged her to spend time with the woman, take her out in public, do anything to make the presence of the cancer less visible. She had taken her out to eat last week, and while she normally wouldn't have thought of the activity as being so harrowing. Her mother never truly believed that there was a discernible issue with her voice (despite the fact that she had informed her that she had alternating appointments with a speech therapist and a psychiatrist because of it) and as such would force her to speak as they passed by people in the streets, despite the more than obvious discomfort it caused her.

Thus, she had begun to gradually look less and less forward to her visits, to the point that she spent the majority of the night before dreading as to the number of people her mother would make her talk to the next day. She'd spoken to her psychiatrist about her anxieties, how they'd eat her up from the inside before, during, and after she slept, and how sometimes those same anxieties would send her spiraling into mini-panic attacks. He'd offered her the same advice he always did when she informed him of her more crippling anxieties; to acknowledge the source of her anxiety, and repeat to herself that everything would be fine, or to think of something or someone that was a source of relaxation for her, that could be a rock for her to cling to.

Naturally, her mind was drawn to Frederick.

And as her psychiatrist had said the thought would, thinking of him in those dark moments at night seemed to curb her anxiety, if only for a little while. She hadn't told her mother about him, aside from the note she'd dropped about her weekly visits with the lonely psychiatrist in a coffee shop every Tuesday afternoon after her mother had pried her for information as to what she'd been up to. Her mother hadn't seemed to care, only enough to make a snide joke at the idea of her being able to share a natural, if sociable relationship with anyone else, much less a man considering how she always had to force her daughter to talk to people. She had said nothing in response, only taking the sutures her mother had split apart with her words and sewing them back together over the wound her mother had reopened. After that display, she had seen nor further reason to speak of her personal affairs with the woman unless she demanded to know.

She had been reluctant to inform Frederick of the true reason behind her consecutive absences because half of her was embarrassed by the woman blood had bound her to, or at least uncomfortable with the idea of staying with her any longer than it was necessary. The other half of her, the part that was the stronger of the two, didn't want to drag him into her personal issues. Cancer was a dirty word. It made people change. It demanded pity for the pitiless, a raw kind of emotional suffering experienced nowhere else, and forced its spectators to bend themselves over backwards as it did its work. And even though she was not afflicted by the condition herself, she had no desire for his pity as she stood by and watched as death's cold and bony hands reached for her mother's internally decaying body.

So she had lied, telling him the first story that had popped into her head. Though, that had only served to make the initial wariness she had spotted in his eyes that much more apparent. Perhaps she had even validated it.

Clearly, her absences had hurt him in some shape or form, and now he didn't know what to think of her.

For a moment, she thought to wrap her hand in his, as a sort of physical reassurance that she hadn't forgotten about him over the past two weeks. But she decided against it, withdrawing the hand she had begun to extend across the table back into the pocket it had emerged from. She had wounded him, and in her experience, wounds needed time to heal, not prodding from the blade that had made the incision in the first place.


End file.
